Problems and solutions of municipal personnel system in Türkiye: A review over metropolitan municipality

Local governments are public legal entities with administrative and financial autonomy, established to meet the local and common needs of the people living in a settlement, whose decision-making bodies are determined by election. There are three basic local government units in Türkiye: municipality, special provincial administration and village. The municipalities that are dominant within this structure are divided into two: "metropolitan municipalities" and "non-metropolitan municipalities". Many public services that affect the daily lives of citizens are provided by municipalities. At this point, the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of public services provided by municipalities gain importance, and success in this regard largely depends on qualified managers and personnel. This situation increases the importance of municipal personnel and municipal personnel system. In this study, the problems of the municipal personnel system are emphasized and solutions are tried to be developed. In this context, firstly, the activity reports, strategic plans, performance programs, personnel recruitment announcements of 30 metropolitan municipalities and the Court of Accounts audit reports for these metropolitan municipalities were examined and the findings were reached. In the second stage, interviews were held with public officials in managerial positions in the human resources units of metropolitan municipalities. In the conclusion of the study, the findings obtained by both methods were discussed as the problem areas of the municipal personnel system and solution suggestions were tried to be developed.